


i didn't know eternity would be this short

by silverkatana



Category: UNIQ (Band)
Genre: Gen, here's a rare non-angst from me, it's 1am and i miss uniq, wenhan-centric, wenhan/yibo but it's mostly platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24425452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverkatana/pseuds/silverkatana
Summary: "do you want to live with us for eternity?""for eternity."
Relationships: Li Wen Han/Wang Yi Bo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	i didn't know eternity would be this short

**Author's Note:**

> please note that this is a fictional work & while loosely based off events that did happen, most of it, unfortunately, probably didn't.
> 
> also, it's a platonic r/s mostly, but if you squint hard enough...
> 
> enjoy!

sometimes, when wenhan is being shaken awake, he mistakes the right people for the wrong ones, and he says the wrong words when he’s too tired to say the right ones. drifting in and out of a hazy deluge of exhaustion, mind still too fogged with sleep (or the lack thereof) to fully come to terms with his surroundings, he can’t help the words that fall from his lips.

“where are my clothes? can you hand them to me?”

expectant, natural, routine. a long-fostered habit that’s only broken by a confused utter of, “what on earth are you saying, we’re not your assistants, get up.”

time after time again, his eyes would widen from under his blankets, and he’d pull them off his face to meet the half-amused, half-vexed expression of the person waking him up. it’s in those kinds of instants that wenhan’s drowsiness drains from his body and realisation crackles through his mind; it’s 2020 now, not 2014; he’s awakening in his bed in unine’s dorm, not uniq’s, and the man standing in front of him is guanyue, not yixuan.

it’s not exactly something that’s only happened once or twice - wenhan remembers feeling that familiar sense of mortification every now and then, and while exasperated, he thinks the unine members have probably gotten used to it. they never really mention it, nor ask him about it, and he doesn’t make it a point to speak about it either. or maybe they just don’t understand all of his habits, all of his instinctive actions, where they came from, and why.

he likes it better this way, honestly. it’s not that it’s a secret he tries to hide, but if they don’t ask, he won’t speak about it. he’s not always the most stellar with words, and he’d rather not make the mistake of using the wrong choice words and watching the unine members realise he’d much rather be with uniq.

it’s not that he has anything against unine; of course not. he loves them, he loves spending time with them, being part of this group. he’d gladly forge good memories with them, sing with them, dance with them, introduce himself as their leader.

but habits are always hard to break, and things you hold close to your heart fade slow. 

sometimes, when wenhan stays up at night to play video games with his members, he ends up dreaming of playing, too, later that night. only that in his dreams, in a mix of light-hearted irritation, he blames yibo for making them lose the game, only to jolt awake at six in the morning, eyes fixed on the dark of the ceiling and brain registering that the one he spends his nights playing with isn’t yibo anymore.

sometimes, when wenhan wakes up in the morning, he ends up draping his leg over the person next to him in a moment of laziness. he’s only brought back to reality once his leg is shoved off and there’s a muffled response of “ _ge_ , what the heck are you doing?”; it’s only then that he belatedly realises _ah, this isn’t right_ , _sungjoo doesn’t call me_ ge. it’s only then that he stumbles out of bed, apologising to chunyang as he does so.

sometimes, when wenhan hears someone say something that reminds him of an old funny memory, he lets a laugh bubble in his throat; only after noticing the other members’ silences is when he’s hit with the revelation that what he’s thinking of is an inside joke from the years prior, that others wouldn’t understand. and then the smile dies from his lips, and he forces himself to stop thinking of bygone years.

it’s during these times that wenhan can’t help the bittersweet smile that flits across his features; after all, now he’s one out of nine, a spot he fought and vied for with all he had, and yet, when this was exactly what he had envisioned those months ago when he stood on the stage again for the first time in a long time, his heart still tethers itself unsteadily to the memory of five people.

he’s become a group leader now, the center of his new group. the memories that haunt his mind sometimes get a little heavy - when he’s standing on stage for rehearsals, staring at the silhouette of nine under the burning stage lights, realising he should be happy but a small part of his heart still screams that it isn’t the _same_. but he’s never wanted to burden the unine members, especially not by talking about uniq, especially not when he’s still a part of unine; and so, it’s become another habit of his to slip on a gentle smile and mouth “it’s nothing” every time they tap his shoulder and ask what’s wrong.

in all honesty, sometimes all he wants to do is call yixuan in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep and can’t hear the mess of emotion in his voice. hello, how are you, it’s been a while. i’ve become a leader now, and i didn’t know how good of one you were back then. how did you even deal with the chaos that was us? you did a good job.

and in a smaller voice, maybe: i still like it better with you as my leader.

having had become unine’s leader, he’s tried countless times to convince himself to stop thinking of anything else, focusing on his new group of eighteen months; yet time and time again, like he’s drawn by a routine, he steps into the recording studio and searches for the familiarity of the voices he knows best, unknowingly listening for sungjoo’s voice in the lines that come before his, only to realise later that they don’t come.

sometimes, it makes him want to run to the company building to find his friend, to crash down on the sofa next to him, to fall into the same good-natured, multilingual conversations they always have. hey, it’s been forever - your chinese has gotten good - what have you been up to recently?

even though he knows he shouldn’t. even though he knows he can’t.

someday, he promises himself. someday, he’ll be able to do that again.

it’s not wrong to slip into these thoughts every now and then, wenhan tells himself each time he does, but he can’t help the slight feeling of guilt that blossoms inside his chest. he’s chased his dreams for this long; he’s finally re-debuted in unine, shouldn’t he be happy? he’s persevered through several months of painstaking effort with the other eight; practising together, from before the sun rose to long after it set, practising until their perspiration dampened their clothes and made it stick to their skin; sleeping together on their bunk beds, sneakily sharing the snacks they hid in the _dachang_ dorms with their roommates. chasing the dream of debuting together, working hour after hour, day after day, month after month with each other; smiling together, laughing together, suffering together, making beautiful memories together.

he thinks he should be happy, really.

but people are never able to fight against the truths that resonate too loud in the crevices of their hearts, no matter what their minds may tell them; maybe he’s taking a short journey away for now, but he is still one out of five - that has yet to change. maybe their perfect stages are long gone, and maybe the time they always spent together has faded into memories. but it’s not all gone, not yet, and he can’t lie to himself and pretend that he’d choose his new group over his old.

he likes unine, he really does. being a member of unine, he’s happy, he really is.

but they’re not the people he’s gone through four years of training with, four years of struggling and fighting for the chance to debut. they’re not the people he trained with every day from nine to four in the morning, trained with until they couldn’t see themselves in the practice room mirrors through the sweat in their eyes, trained with until they couldn’t make their way back to the dorms without clinging onto each other for support. they’re not the ones who he lived with in the dorms for four, five, six years, the ones whose every movement, every habit, every thought is something he’s used to, the ones who he plays games with at two in the morning, the ones who he lets cling onto him in the middle of the night after they finish a horror movie.

they’re not the ones who yell at each other in the middle of the day after being forced to eat each other’s failed cookings, the ones who laugh and save and take each others’ ugliest photos, the ones who can predict each others’ every move with ease. they’re not the ones he’s laughed with, lost his mind with, cried with for eight, nine, ten years. they’re not the ones he met when he was still a kid not knowing the harsher realities of the world, not the ones he grew up next to, not the ones he poured in his blood, sweat and tears with, chasing the beautiful dream of the stage that bound them all together.

he likes them, he really does. he enjoys being on stage with them, talking to them, eating with them.

but they’re not uniq.

sometimes, wenhan stops trying so hard to focus on only unine and acknowledges that no matter how hard he tries, there’ll always be a part of him that he’s left behind with uniq, that he’ll only feel whole again once he returns to find that part of him. and when he thinks like this, he doesn’t know whether to feel bitter or happy. uniq isn’t gone; it’s still there. all five of them are still members of uniq, and he can’t be more grateful about that. but sometimes, he wonders to himself: when will they be able to comeback? will they ever be able to? when will the day come where five people can stand on the same stage again? is it even possible?

he’s always preferred to look on the brighter side of things, and would much rather subscribe to blind faith than crushing doubt, but he’s well-aware that no matter how much anyone desires anything, there won’t ever be a guarantee that that something will happen.

it makes him tired.

it’s in these moments that it makes him even more desperate to reach out to his members; it makes him want to grab his phone, maybe send a text to seungyoun, not even knowing whether he still has _weixin_ on his phone; seungyoun-ah, you’ve been alright, right? nowadays, i wish i could fly to korea for a bit, maybe come and chat with you for a bit. do you wish for that too?

wenhan thinks it’s a shame, really. when he traces back the moments, he can’t pinpoint for sure when it was that the road they shared split into five different routes, heading in separate directions; all he knows is that in the end, the stages that they shared, the name ‘uniq’ that they shouted, the times that they spent together ultimately ended up fading away.

whenever he thinks about this, the thorns that pierce his heart are always sharp, sharper than before.

growing up together, spending their youth together, making their dreams come true together; who would have thought that one day, the five of them, almost like a second family to one another, would have been forced apart? so many years’ worth of memories, of knowing them, have already taken root in the cracks of his heart; being met with a haunting silence after so many years, who wouldn’t be faced with sorrow?

sometimes, wenhan thinks that this uncertain, revealing-of-nothing silence makes his heart more unsteady than news of disbandment. of course, disbandment would always be the last thing he wants, but after spending so many years silently wandering down this road of waiting, not knowing when the time for their reunion will come, if it will ever come, gets tiring sometimes. after so many years of waiting, maybe he will finally get to relive his dreams of standing on the stage with them; or maybe after so many years of waiting, all he’ll be met with is a cruel silence, a crushing confirmation that his dreams have been broken into empty nothingness. 

sometimes, he just wishes someone - _anyone_ \- would give him an answer, to tell him that he doesn’t have to keep wandering anymore, tracing back his steps to the road that all five of them once stood on and getting lost over, and over, and over again; he just wishes that he could know _something_ , _anything_ , so he can stop foolishly protecting, day and day again, this hope in his heart that he knows cannot control anything; so he can stop walking in circles trying to find the road that he doesn’t know why he stepped off, so he can stop drowning himself in thoughts of the past both in his waking hours and in the throes of his dreams.

he’s so fortunate, so thankful; he tells himself this all the time, and it’s true - he could return to the stage he’s dreamed of since he was young, a perfectly-earned second chance to do what he’s always loved to do. in the months following ‘youth with you’, his fanbase has more than doubled; he thinks he’s fortunate, he really is.

yet he still thinks of all the times before the show, before the stages, before he wandered off the road that felt like home. he still thinks of all the times he was “uniq’s member, li wenhan” before he was “‘youth with you’s li wenhan” and “unine’s leader, li wenhan”; all the times he would cast his gaze out from the stage to see a familiar sea of purple lights; all the times he would hear calls of “zhou yixuan”, “kim sungjoo”, “li wenhan”, “cho seungyoun”, “wang yibo” when he walked in the airport. nowadays, when he goes to the airport for his solo schedules, he only hears his name, and some days, it reminds him of the crushing emptiness by his side. the space that four others left behind.

every time he’s asked in interviews, he would say undaunted, without the slightest bit of hesitation: “i don’t leave behind any regrets”. and it’s true, to an extent, to say he tries his best to do whatever he wants to do, to not let himself think of the _what if’s_ and the _i should have’s_. but it’s also untrue, to an extent, to say that any person can possibly live without ever once experiencing regret; and it’s true for him, too.

in his case, he’s never been fond of mulling over his regrets, preferring to cast them away to some corner of his subconsciousness and ignoring them until he forgets about them. regrets are grievances over things already passed, anyway - tormenting himself over it wouldn’t bring what has already been done any justice. yet there’s always been this nagging regret that refuses to let itself be forgotten, refuses to be pushed to the back of his mind, refuses to be dismissed as unimportant and a hopeless case.

they always say you never know how precious something is until after it’s gone.

wenhan regrets knowing that, and yet unknowingly allowing himself to only truly realise it after the road they walked on together split into different paths.

wenhan regrets never thanking yixuan enough for being their leader, for somehow handling four unruly, sometimes disruptive members without so much as batting an eyelid, for always complying, for never getting angry. and now it would be too awkward to call him, to thank him for that; too much time has passed by now, and wenhan fears the words would get stuck in his throat.

wenhan regrets not speaking to sungjoo more, not having more of their laid-back, random, sometimes incomprehensible conversations in the middle of the night or in the morning when they’re barely awake, lying next to each other; not singing more of their favourite songs together, not stealing more of sungjoo’s clothes while he had the chance. and now his friend has entered the military, and even if he bought an airplane ticket to korea tomorrow there would still be nothing he could do to meet him.

wenhan regrets not spending more time playing games with seungyoun; the stupid, nonsensical games they always manage to come up with when they’re either bored out of their minds or exhausted to the point of insanity; he regrets not treasuring the joking banter more, not teasing seungyoun more and laughing at the expression on his face while he had the chance. and now seungyoun is busy promoting in korea, while he’s overloaded with work in china; how can they possibly find time to meet?

wenhan regrets not spending more two in the morning’s playing video games with yibo, not talking idly with him in the dead of the night when the lights are off and he needs someone’s presence to keep him warm; he regrets not singing more songs to him, not being able to spend every birthday with him like he once did. and now the younger of the two has reached a new height of popularity, with his schedule being so packed that he can only find a couple of minutes to check his phone after half a day has passed; how can wenhan possibly ask yibo to spend time with him instead of resting?

in all honesty, at times he still does feel like picking up his phone, keying in yibo’s number, listening to yibo’s “hello? wenhan- _ge_?”; hey, yibo, it’s me. are you still keeping well? it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

and then, i miss you, do you miss me too?

every uniq member is busy nowadays, occupied with their individual schedules; after all, they’re still singers, still artists, and they can’t let their world stop in time even if the group they once thought was their world does. and wenhan doesn’t tell them, he doesn’t tell anyone at all, but occasionally, he searches them up on _weibo_ out of curiosity to see what they’ve been up to, to see that they’re busy with work and to assure himself that all his members are doing well, that they’re all succeeding, and it’s this small fragment of knowledge that they’re doing okay that smooths over the cracks of his heart a little.

sometimes, though, in the midst of scrolling aimlessly through the app, he wonders if the other members are like him too; if they’re still stubbornly clinging onto the name that binds all five of them, or if he’s the only one left hanging from a thread that had been let go of without his knowledge.

he doesn’t know, nor does he dare to ask, because he’s too scared of the possibility that everyone has already accepted the branch in their paths, that everyone has already given up the small flicker of hope in their hearts, that everything he’s refusing to let go of has already become a faded memory.

in unine, there are members who are also part of another group, yet wenhan has long noticed that they’ve not made mention of those groups, not even once; he wonders if they still think of them, if they’re haunted by their memories just like he is. because he still sees them in flashes of intermingling reality and memory; he still sees seungyoun running around the corner in brief moments of hazy uncertainty, only to see him transform into changxi in the blink of an eye; he still sees yibo sprawled on the couch in front of the tv when he walks into the room, only to see his face change into youwei’s as he walks closer; he still sees sungjoo’s hair peeking out from under the blankets when he walks into his room late at night, only to pull the blankets off and stare down at chunyang’s sleeping face. he still sees yixuan through sleep-fogged eyes in the morning, only to see him shapeshift into guanyue after rubbing his eyes.

it makes him jealous, in a way, to see them seem so unaffected; maybe the thoughts of their old groups really don’t cross their mind, or maybe they’re just good at covering it up, even better than him. sometimes, when he’s sitting on the sofa and guanyue walks by, he’s tempted to ask “the xii constellations members, do all of you still chat?”

he never does, though, biting back his tongue each time. maybe it’s because he’s scared of letting others see the unsteadiness residing in every beat of his heart, scared of letting them see the masquerade of carefreeness be broken. he’s never been one to talk openly about everything that’s been weighing him down, and he’s scared that opening up about uniq will only make him miss them more.

in the end, maybe fate has developed a personal vendetta against him; what he didn’t want to happen happens, the words he didn’t want to say fall past his lips, and the emotions he kept hidden for so long accidentally reveal themselves.

it’s something that was sparked by a brief moment of muddleheadedness, a few accidental words that fell upon the ears of people he didn’t intend to say them to. 

“li wenhan, get up, it’s late.” in that instance, wenhan, shaken from his sleep, is barely aware of what’s going on around him, only able to register that there’s a pair of hands on his shoulders shaking him awake.

it can’t be yibo or seungyoun, he tells himself sleepily, they’re more violent than that.

“there are no schedules today, why are you calling me awake,” he mumbles into his pillow, voice muffled and unwilling. “yibo’s room… they’re probably still sleeping, right, _ge_?”

he’s only met with a silence, and the hands on his shoulder uncertainly stop shaking him awake. the silence diffuses through the room slowly, taking on a little of an awkward tint, before wenhan jerks upright in bed, staring at guanyue.

he knows full well of what he had let slip out of his mouth, and he knows full well from the mildly confused expression on guanyue’s face that the member had heard exactly what he had said too.

“sorry.” his first instinct is to apologise, bowing his head to guanyue, although it’s mostly to avoid eye contact; his second is bolt into the bathroom and lock the door behind him, staring at his panicked gaze in the mirror.

in a sense, he’s almost mad at himself for what had just occurred. _so many years_ , he tells himself bitterly, fighting the lump of emotion that wells in his larynx, _so many years and you’re still envisioning them in places where they’re not_.

he knows they’re not living together anymore, that they’re not physically by his side anymore. and he hates that he allows himself to pretend they are, allows himself to see fragments of them in places where they’re _not_ , allows himself to see them everywhere even when they’re not there. over, and over, and over again.

he stares at the mirror, at the tears that he refuses to let fall out of his eyes, and draws a deep, shuttling breath, before exhaling and letting his warm breath fog up the mirror, watching as his own reflection disappears gradually from his sight. it repeats in a regular cycle, until he’s gone from his own sight, until chunyang bashes on the bathroom door and breaks him out of his stupor.

he half-stumbles, half-walks out of the door to let chunyang in, biting his lip as he realises guanyue is still standing there, a somewhat vacant light to his gaze that only disappears once he focuses his eyes on wenhan. he fights back a wince as he walks over, his heart sitting heavy in his chest, knowing that now guanyue _knows_ , and he can’t do anything about it.

“wenhan-ah…” after hearing his name being called, it would be difficult to refuse to raise his head to meet guanyue’s gently curious gaze. “you… why would you apologise?”

_oh_. “it’s just…” for a moment, wenhan grapples for the right words to say, not knowing what to say, _how_ to say everything he wants to say, unable to find the right words to express the thoughts weighing heavy in his mind, unable to illustrate the complicated mess tangled across his heart and mind.

“you miss them, don’t you?” guanyue asks suddenly, and wenhan hesitates, but the answer he settles on in the end is the same as what popped into his mind from the moment he heard the question.

“yes.”

guanyue chuckles a little; wenhan can’t tell if it’s a bitter one or not. “i think of my group a lot too,” he confesses, and wenhan doesn’t bother to hide the mild surprise that flits across his expression. “why be sorry? reminiscing is such a beautiful thing. you know, one day our-” he makes a vague gesture, but wenhan knows he’s referring to unine. “- story will be over, but just because it ends doesn’t mean we’ll stop reminiscing our moments from time to time, right?”

wenhan doesn’t know what it is that makes him more willing to let others see the more vulnerable side to him, and he doesn’t know, either, what makes him continue to speak. “it’s just…” there’s a moment’s silence as he searches for the right words to use, and guanyue lets him. “... if all that’s left are memories, doesn’t it really mean that everything has come to an end?”

wenhan sees the faint glimmer in guanyue’s eyes, and he can’t fully place the emotion that exists within his gaze, but he understands in that moment; guanyue knows how he feels. maybe they don’t feel the exact same way - no one shares the same story, after all - but he _knows_. and that’s good enough.

“if you’re scared of this,” guanyue responds quietly, “then please don’t let them go.”

“and if they’ve already left?” wenhan questions.

the ghost of a smile flickers across guanyue’s face. wistful, almost. “if you go and find them again and they’re still there waiting for you, then they’ve never left.”

“i’m scared,” wenhan admits. it feels like a small weight off his chest, even though he never thought he would be saying any of his feelings aloud. “i’m scared it’ll be awkward. that they’ve - that we’ve changed. i’m scared of finding out that i’ve already lost the people i hold so close to my heart.”

this brings forth a slight chuckle from guanyue. “who doesn’t change?” he queries rhetorically, making wenhan smile a little in concession. “all of us unknowingly grow up at some point in our lives, and we constantly grow into different versions of ourselves as time passes. you must’ve changed too, right? anyway, you’ve known each other for a long time-”

“- ten years,” wenhan affirms.

“- ten years, those ten years’ worth of bonds won’t disappear that easily, i promise.” guanyue reaches out to pat his shoulder. “what are you scared of?”

wenhan releases a breath, and it comes out shakier than he’d like to admit. “i’m scared of realising they’re all satisfied with the way things are now, that they’re happy working individually. i’m scared of realising i’m standing all alone here, foolishly waiting for something that won’t happen. i’m scared that the dream that five people used to have of holding a concert… has become only one person’s dream. scared that when i reach out my hand, i’ll realise that i’m the only one who’s left.” it’s getting harder to speak now, and he lets out a hissing breath. “i’m scared that when i ask if anyone’s there, i won’t get any reply anymore.”

a silence settles between them, and wenhan wonders if this time, guanyue doesn’t know what to say in response to him. a thin smile placed upon his lips, he stands from where he’s sitting and pats guanyue’s shoulder lightly. “it’s okay.”

“but-” wenhan stops walking towards the door, turning once again to meet guanyue’s gaze. “- even if you’re scared, don’t you think it’ll be better to say something rather than saying nothing at all?”

wenhan presses his lips together, unsure of how to respond; while guanyue’s words are true in a sense, it’s long become a habit for him to avoid all the difficult questions revolving around uniq in particular, and now, he doesn’t quite know how to manoeuvre everything anymore. even if maintaining silence would never fix anything, maybe it’d keep him from facing his fears for a little longer, keep him from the possibility of realising what he doesn’t want to realise a little longer.

“they’re probably very busy,” he says smoothly. he’s used the excuse too many times before. “they must be tired, so i don’t want to disturb them.” it’s not a _lie_ in a sense - they are busy.

“you’re busy too,” guanyue points out, “but even if you’re busy, will you still be willing to spend time with them?”

wenhan fights the urge to click his tongue. why does guanyue always have to be so logical, so _right_ about things sometimes? the answer rests painfully obvious on the tip of his tongue, and he’s unable to bring himself to say anything but the truth, so he settles on a simple “yeah”.

even if it had to be at four, five, six in the morning; he thinks a night without rest would be more than worth it if it meant they could meet again.

“then how could you assume they don’t feel the same?” guanyue smiles. “maybe you should give them a call and see how it goes. don’t worry, a relationship of ten years can’t be extinguished that easily.”

and wenhan doesn’t know _what_ makes him oblige, but at some point that afternoon he makes up his mind and decides doing something is better than sitting around and doing nothing at all. and that’s how, in a moment of decisiveness, he finds himself grabbing his phone and pressing the ‘call’ button. it’s only after he hears the familiar dial tone that he realises he’s really, actually doing it, and he doesn’t know _why_ it makes him nervous - it’s not like they _don’t_ talk to each other, after all - but it does.

gripping his phone with an odd mix of apprehensive anticipation, he finds himself partly hoping the other party _won’t_ pick up, because he might not be able to find the words to say what he wants to; he’s too busy, he’s probably working, and won’t have time to pick the phone up, his mind reasons.

it feels like half an eternity has passed before the ringing stops, and wenhan lets a sigh of relief escape him. it looks like the call hadn’t been picked up after all; and he’s glad, in a way, because he realises that he’s nowhere near prepared to say all the things he wants to convey.

and then, a muffled, “ _wei_?”

wenhan freezes.

it’s been a long time since they’ve spoken over the phone like this, but his voice is still so familiar.

“hello? wenhan- _ge_? are you there?” there’s the faint sounds of shuffling in the back, and the voice pipes up again. “why did you call me?”

for a moment, the words are caught in his throat, and wenhan fears he’ll be forced to hang up without saying anything. “no, it’s just - i -” what does he _say_? hello, i missed you? when can i next see you again? everything gets stuck somewhere along the tip of his tongue, and he ends up with: “have you been busy lately?”

he’s not usually one to call to check in on people or exchange pleasantries, and yibo doesn’t bother to hide his surprise either. “uh.” there’s a pause. “just the normal, i guess. you?”

“just the normal,” he echoes, not knowing how or why it’s so awkward for him; he’s not usually like this, yet his mind and mouth refuse to cooperate with him today - it’s just a regular phone call, yet he can barely even bring himself to greet others properly.

“so,” yibo probes, “why did you call? it probably wasn’t just to ask me if i was busy, was it?” wenhan hears muffled shouting behind yibo; he must be recording something.

“do you have time? if you’re filming now you should go, don’t get scolded by the director,” wenhan says hastily, “we can call again later.”

he hears more shuffling in the background, accompanied by yibo saying something to someone that he can’t quite make out. “no,” yibo speaks into the phone once again, “no, i’m free now, don’t worry. why?”

“uh.” wenhan had assumed yibo would stop the call to film, and once again, he grapples for the words to say. “i just-”

yibo snickers a little. it’s a familiar sound, and it still brings a smile to wenhan’s face despite himself. “ _ge_ ,” yibo says, a little playfully, “if you miss me, just say so.”

wenhan can’t help the laughter that bubbles in his throat. “i never knew you knew me so well.”

“of course i do!” yibo retorts a little indignantly, “i’ve known you for ten years!” 

wenhan had forgotten how nice it felt to laugh like this; the smile sits natural on his face, not disappearing, not fading away as the seconds pass.

in a lower, gentler voice, yibo tells him, “i missed you, too.”

“ah.” wenhan blinks. “really?”

“of course.” yibo sounds a little offended about how wenhan would even doubt him. “there’s no one to play games with me at three in the morning anymore. it gets lonely sometimes, you know.”

“i-” wenhan can’t tell if he’s joking or being serious about the games part. “i thought you were too busy.”

“no, i was waiting for the day you would call me and invite me to play.”

wenhan doesn’t know why his vision gets so blurry.

“are you in beijing today?”

the street is empty, devoid of any signs of human life, with only the dim lights of faraway streetlamps accompanying him as he walks along the pavement. the night wind is chillier than he had expected it to be, and he shivers, regretting not bringing a thicker coat with him. wenhan walks alone in the three a.m. silence, head bent to avoid the sting of the wind, his steps hastened.

he thinks it’s an odd image to imagine, him standing shivering in the three a.m. cold and knocking on wang yibo’s door. but then again, at this point, he can’t bring himself to care; all he wants to do is get out of the cold and to see yibo again.

“wang yibo,” he whisper-yells, “please tell me you haven’t gone to sleep, and open the damn door - oh.”

the door opens as per his request, and wenhan can’t help but to throw himself forward and wrap his arms around the youngest member of their group. he hears yibo chuckling as he shuts the door behind them, and feels yibo’s arms encircle him in reciprocation. they stay like that for a moment, with yibo not really minding, and wenhan taking comfort in his warmth.

yibo lets his chin rest atop wenhan’s shoulder, mumbling with a hint of joking annoyance, “why are you so late?”, and wenhan knows he isn’t referring to the hour that he’s visiting.

“sorry,” he responds, beginning to walk towards yibo’s bedroom, where he makes himself comfortable at the foot of the bed. yibo follows suit. “i was just scared, i guess. i didn’t want to face the possibility that anyone had already left my side, but i guess - i guess i was dumb to think like that.”

yibo laughs a little, but wenhan knows he understands. “do you remember?” he asks suddenly. “back when you asked me if i wanted to live with all of you for eternity.”

“ah.” it brings a fond smile to wenhan’s lips; of course he remembers. “you said yes, for eternity.”

“yeah.” yibo shifts, drawing a knee up to his chin. “those weren’t empty words, you know?” his smile softens into one that’s a little more bittersweet. “at one point, i really did hope it would be like that. i guess back then i was still too innocent, and i didn’t know anything. in a flash, i grew up, and-” he shrugs. “- i began to ask myself when was it that all the people by my side began to disappear without saying a word, and i asked myself where they went, why i couldn’t see them anymore…”

wenhan flinches. he understands - almost too well.

“i began to ask myself when it was that we all started to walk in different directions.” yibo turns to glance at wenhan, his eyes moist with wistfulness. “holding such a foolishly innocent dream back then; it was only after it was broken that i realised this is what growing up is like.” his smile gets more bitter, mirroring wenhan’s own expression. “i didn’t know that in the end, eternity would be this short.”

wenhan doesn’t know why some corner of his heart begins to hurt so much. there’s so much he wants to say, wants to do, but in the end he realises he can do nothing more than wrap yibo in an embrace, concealing the tears that threaten to leak from the corners of his eyes. “sorry,” he murmurs, even if he doesn’t know why he’s apologising. “back then, i really didn’t know it would turn out like this, that our promises would be shattered so easily like this. i never thought that fate could be such a cruel thing.”

“it’s okay.” wenhan wonders if yibo is holding back the tears like he is. “no one would have been able to predict, to know, that it would be like this, anyway. as long as you’re here now, i guess it’s okay.”

even if his voice cracks a little, wenhan allows himself to laugh. “i’m sorry for being late.”

“yeah, you’ve made me wait for you for too long.” yibo hits wenhan’s chest with a faint glimmer of mischief in his tone, although it softens and he confesses in a more truthful fashion, “but even though you’re late, you came, so it makes me happy.”

wenhan thinks it’s funny, in a way. “so we’re both idiots who missed everyone yet were too scared to do anything about it.”

yibo cracks a smile. “you’re more of an idiot.”

“what did i do?” wenhan retorts indignantly.

“you’re older.”

“and?”

“more years of idiocy accumulated.” yibo taps wenhan’s forehead. “and you’re the one with that nickname in uniq, anyway.”

wenhan clicks his tongue in pretend annoyance, and yibo takes that as his cue to hop off the bed and search around for the games they used to play. “are you staying the night?”

“yeah, it’s in the middle of the night, it’ll be hard for me to find a taxi once we’re done playing. i’ll just ask my manager to fetch me in the morning,” wenhan says dismissively. he might get a bit of an earful, but at this point, anything’s worth it.

“won’t he scold you?” yibo voices wenhan’s very concerns. “you don’t have schedules in the morning.”

wenhan thinks yibo’s slightly worried expression is cute. “if he scolds then he scolds,” wenhan says languidly while leaning back onto the bed, smiling at yibo’s raised eyebrow, “we only have activities in the afternoon. if we oversleep and i have no time, i’ll just borrow your clothes and go straight from here.”

“you still have the nerve to say you’ll borrow my clothes,” yibo remarks, “who was the one who borrowed my sweater from me all those years ago? up to this day i still haven’t seen it again.” he fakes being irritated, but his voice holds hints of laughter.

wenhan sits up straight in bed, his mouth forming a small ‘ _o_ ’ of realisation. “so the sweater was yours! it’s still in my wardrobe now, i like wearing it.” he chuckles. “besides, i have a jacket that you never returned, either.”

yibo pretends not to have heard. “give me a second while i set the game up.”

wenhan lets out a short _tsk_ , but he doesn’t hide the fond smile that settles on his features; he hadn’t realised how much he missed light-hearted chatter like this until now. 

they end up playing until dawn breaks, the frigid night turned warm under the sounds of them shouting over one another and their laughter, punctuated by comfortable conversation about all sorts of things under the weather.

by the time they’re done, it crosses wenhan’s mind that any hope of getting decent sleep is likely gone, but he doesn’t really mind; any is better than none, especially with companionship like this. “are you still scared of the dark?” he mumbles as he crashes into yibo’s bed after switching off the lights.

yibo drapes a leg over wenhan’s. “not if you’re here.”

“so you usually sleep with the lights on?”

“ _ey_ , stop teasing me.” yibo clicks his tongue.

wenhan laughs. “it wastes electricity, you know?”

yibo half-shoves wenhan’s head into the pillow, ignoring his muffled complaints. “fine.” he releases wenhan, not batting an eyelid as the older huffs at him, “then you should come over more often, that way i won’t have to leave my lights on.”

wenhan slings his arm lazily over yibo’s body, and his response comes in the form of a drowsy mumble. “mmkay.”

they fall asleep that way, falling asleep to the sound of their breathing in tandem, to the touch of their skin against each other’s, to the warmth that blooms gentle within them.

“... han… wenhan… wenhan, wake the hell up, your phone is ringing and it’s noisy.”

trapped somewhere between wakefulness and being barely-conscious, wenhan doesn’t even know if he’s still caught somewhere in a dream or if he’s actually awake; he feels like he hears yibo’s voice from somewhere, although at this point he’s learnt not to trust himself early in the morning.

he cracks an eye open and ends up staring at yibo’s half-asleep expression; he shakes his head once, then twice, and confirms that the one in front of him is indeed yibo and that he is not dreaming. 

it’s nice to finally meet the day where his dream and reality align.

“so-” he begins, only to feel yibo hit him, breaking his thought process. 

“hurry up and pick up your phone, it’s annoying,” yibo mumbles, drawing the blanket over his face and going back to sleep.

wenhan obliges, checking on his phone which has stopped ringing; as he takes note of both the time and the number of missed calls, his heart jumps into the back of his throat and hangs there, unbeating, for a moment. “oh my god, how are there so many missed calls?” he stares at the screen of his phone, not quite knowing what to do. “i’m dead.”

two missed calls from guanyue, one each from jiayi and chunyang, and six from his manager. he’s quite frankly, mind the colloquialism, screwed. his phone rings - the seventh call from his manager, and as much as he would love to ignore it and go back to sleep and pretend it never happened, it’s impossible for him not to pick it up.

he swallows thickly. “... _wei_?”

“li wenhan, where on _earth_ are you?”

he winces at the man’s aggravated tone, immediately feeling a sense of guilt pricking at him. he hadn’t meant to oversleep. “sorry, i-”

“don’t bother apologising, there’s no time,” comes the brusque response, “i’ve already started driving, we can’t have the rest of the members be late because the leader decides to be late.” his emphasis on the word ‘leader’ makes wenhan suck in a stinging breath, sorely aware of how badly this must reflect of him. “i don’t care where you are right now, if you can come, quickly come. if you’re sure you’re going to be very late, then don’t bother - it’ll be too embarrassing if the leader only shows up halfway through the shoot without valid reason.”

wenhan can hear his heartbeat in his ears, feel the perspiration on his palms as he grips his phone more tightly than he needs to. “o - okay. i’ll… okay, no problem, don’t worry.”

“the roads will be saturated with traffic now and it’s peak hour, are you sure you’re going to even be able to get a taxi?”

wenhan bites the inside of his cheek. “well, i’m not able to guarantee that, but-”

he pauses as he feels his phone being lifted out of his grasp, and turns to yibo, who had at some point sat up and decided it would be fit to take wenhan’s phone away; _what are you doing_ , he mouths in shock, shaking his head as he warns yibo against saying anything.

“don’t worry, i’ll drive him there,” yibo says flatly into the phone, completely ignoring wenhan’s frantic gestures at him.

“ _ah_? who even are y-”

yibo ends the call and hands the phone back to wenhan. 

“w - what are you _doing_ ,” wenhan chokes out in disbelief, “are you insane?”

yibo shrugs, his expression unchanging. “you can’t be late, can you?” he replies calmly. “pick out clothes from the wardrobe and let’s go, hurry.”

still stunned but unable to do anything but comply, wenhan obliges to yibo’s rather forceful offer, and only minutes later he finds himself sitting in yibo’s car, in yibo’s clothes.

“when did you even get a license?” wenhan mumbles, peering out the window. “are you sure you know how to drive?”

“last year,” yibo responds, beginning to drive out of the carpark, “i’m not the best driver, but well, i’m your best option right now.”

“well.” wenhan guesses he really doesn’t have much of a choice. “if we die, we die together.”

if yibo weren’t so focused on driving, wenhan is sure he would have reached over to hit him. “i’m not _that_ bad,” the younger of the two retorts, and wenhan only snickers in response.

“... how do you wash your clothes?” wenhan comments less than two minutes later, bringing the collar of the sweater up to his nose. “why does it still smell like you?”

yibo turns a corner. “that’s good,” he smirks, eyes focused on the road ahead, “that way i can accompany you even if i’m not there physically.”

wenhan can’t lie and say he wasn’t a _little_ surprised at the remark. “when did you become so sweet and thoughtful?”

“that was always my nickname,” yibo retorts. “i’ve always been this way, hush.”

“be careful, at this rate i might fall for you if you keep this up,” wenhan says teasingly, unable to prevent the smile that blossoms upon his features.

“good,” yibo shoots back a little smugly, “i think you should.”

wenhan rolls his eyes, and yibo chortles. he turns another corner, squinting at the row of almost-identical buildings lined up next to each other. “is it that one? the third one on the left?”

“ah, yeah!” he hadn’t been aware of how much time had passed while conversing in the car; with a quick glance at his phone, he realises with some surprise that he’s not late yet, and relief floods his veins almost immediately. “thanks so much, and i’m really sorry, i didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“no worries.” yibo watches as wenhan opens the door, raising a hand from the wheel to wave goodbye. “it’s good that you’re not late, but you’d best run before you are. good luck for today!”

“you too!” wenhan half-says, half-shouts as he exits the car, waving behind him. “let’s meet again another day, yeah!”

he quickens his steps, almost running past the doors and into the building to where unine is, inwardly preparing himself for the earful he’s sure he’s going to receive.

“li wenhan!”

he had guessed correctly, of course; even without seeing his expression, he can hear the vexation in his manager’s voice. wenhan arrives in unine’s dressing room a somewhat sweaty, bare-faced and messy-haired version of himself, dressed in clothes that aren’t his own, tiredly leaning against the door handle and trying to catch his breath while explaining himself at the same time.

“hurry up and get your makeup done!”

wenhan obliges, sitting down on the chair, where makeup artists begin to dab at his face with more hurried motions than usual. 

“you gallivant off for one whole night, and even your own group members don’t know where you’ve gone,” the manager seethes, and wenhan drops his gaze so he doesn’t have to make eye contact through the mirror. “you’re the leader, do you not have a single sense of responsibility?”

there’s nothing he can do but bow his head and apologise repeatedly; it’s true, he shouldn’t have disappeared without warning, especially not when they had schedules the following day. and it’s true; as the leader, his undisciplined behaviour would ultimately leave a worse taste in the mouth as compared to other members. through the mirror, he can see the expressions written on the faces of other members; some look lost, confused, uncertain as to what had ensued - others were minding their own business, just glad that he had arrived on time, while there were some (guanyue and chunyang, in particular) who weren’t even trying to hide the knowing smirks on their faces.

“so,” his manager continued, and he sucked in a breath. so he wasn’t done yet. “where exactly did you end up going?”

he can sense the underlying anger still toiling underneath his manager’s strained tone, and he dips his head and apologises once more. “it’s just…” the company has reminded him not to speak of uniq as a unine member, and he doesn’t wish to expose yibo either, for fear that he might somehow end up in trouble. “... a good friend of mine. i went to his house.”

“you’re not even going to tell me your friend’s name?” 

a warning. wenhan understands that much. guanyue watches him in the mirror, holding his breath, wondering if he’ll let the name slip from his lips or not.

wenhan meets the manager’s gaze steadily. “no, i’m not,” he replies simply, ignoring guanyue’s expression in the mirror, “going to someone’s house in the middle of the night was my mistake, and has nothing to do with him.” he knows that he might just be creating more scoldings for himself, but he bites down on his tongue, refusing to speak further until the manager gives in and leaves him alone for the time being.

he endures through the shoot and another round of scoldings before they’re finally dropped off at the dorms; freed of his schedules for the day, he lets himself collapse onto the bed as chunyang calls dibs over the shower. after a brief moment of consideration, he calls yibo, only to have him pick the phone up instantly this time.

“did you get scolded?” is the first thing that yibo asks.

“not even a greeting?” he responds dryly. “yeah, i got scolded, but i think that was a given. but after that now i don’t know when i’ll be able to meet you or any of the others again.” he sighs heavily. “i guess you’ll still have to waste electricity every night.”

surprisingly, yibo doesn’t sound too surprised. “so you just called me to tell me that you managed to steal another one of my clothes?”

“it’s not stealing,” wenhan protests immediately, “it’s borrowing, _borrowing_!”

“who borrows things and doesn’t return them even several years later?” yibo fires back, his voice brimming with mirth. 

“me… there’s me.”

yibo snorts. “you’re a little weird.”

“it’s not called _weird_ , it’s called being _special_ ,” wenhan stresses, “understood?”

“okay, okay, suit yourself.” he can hear yibo’s laughter clearly through the phone. “as long as you’re happy deceiving yourself.”

“ah, this annoying kid-!”

the second time he meets yibo is purely out of coincidence; in order to film a programme of his, he flies to changsha in may. his only plans had been to film and then rest in the hotel, but after checking _weibo_ and noticing fans discussing both his and yibo’s presence in changsha, he considers that it might be time to revise his plans a little.

he only arrives in the city later in the day, and he’s quick to send yibo a message - “are you in changsha?” - to which he receives a “yes”. the flurried exchange of information then takes place over text, and after a quick check on the web, wenhan determines that their hotels are in reasonable proximity to one another.

hearts that once beat together have a wonderful way of finding each other back again, and scattered fragments of the same whole have a wonderful way of coming together once again, and that’s how wenhan somehow reunites with half of uniq that night.

some way or another, at eleven at night, wenhan hears a series of knocking on his door; assuming it to be his manager, he opens it, only to see someone he had been half-expecting, half-not expecting. “yibo,” he greets, partially bewildered, “how did you even get here?”

“if you disappeared in the middle of the night again you’d be in trouble,” yibo says by way of explanation, walking into wenhan’s hotel room without invitation, and wenhan closes the door behind him. “so i came to find you instead.”

wenhan blinks. “and you won’t get into trouble?”

yibo shrugs. “i’m not the one bound by an exclusive contract to another group. and i also don’t run off without telling my manager, don’t worry. he knows.”

“oh.” wenhan pulls out his phone, wrapping his arm around yibo’s shoulder at the same time. “let’s take a picture and send it to the members. tell them we miss them.”

“we won’t be able to post it to _weibo_ , will we?” yibo asks after they take the picture and send it, even though he kind of already knows the answer. “the fans were so excited at the possibility of us meeting.”

wenhan chuckles. it is sad, in a sense - they did meet, but the fans would never know; they would be forced to think they never met. “not now. let’s wait until after october… no matter how many pictures we take then, nothing bad will come out of it.”

yibo hums in agreement. “we’ll wait until that day then.” he peers at his phone, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “check your phone, xuan- _ge_ said he’s in changsha too.”

“how did i not know? when did he even come?” wenhan laughs; he finds it a little funny how yixuan was able to soundlessly fly to changsha at some unknown point in time, to the point where even the fans who usually knew everything weren’t aware.

life is just like that - unexpected, always unpredictable, and sometimes, you get visitors you didn’t know would visit, but you enjoy their presence all the same. he had come to changsha without any expectation, unaware of his other members being in the same city as him, but at half past twelve at night, here he is, sitting with two other uniq members in his hotel room, reminiscing bygone years and talking about every little thing they can possibly think to talk about.

“do you miss uniq?” yibo suddenly probes yixuan, already well-aware of wenhan’s answer.

yixuan doesn’t hesitate, not even for half a second. “of course i do. i miss us every day.”

his response is followed by wenhan’s laughter, and yixuan looks over at him with mild confusion. “sorry,” he apologises, “i just - it’s funny to know that all of us are idiots who all miss each other and yet are too scared to talk about it truthfully. and i guess it’s just comforting to know we’re all still so stubbornly clinging onto this… still so stubbornly waiting.”

yixuan grins, reaching out to rub their hair. in a rare moment of placidity, they let him. “whether or not all this waiting ever pays off isn’t something we can guarantee. but if we won’t be the ones who keep waiting with this foolish optimism, who will?”

“ah, the old man is saying wise words again.”

“you, shut your mouth.”

the night comes and goes like this; the darkness bleeds into the faint tints of daybreak over the warmth of their intermingled voices and meshed laughter, and wenhan doesn’t know how much time has passed before they stop talking for a short lapse in time, exhausted after catching up for hours on end.

“the eternity we once wished we had was shattered long ago,” yibo mumbles, head on wenhan’s shoulder, half-asleep, “but this is enough to make me happy now.”

“it’s impossible to promise someone eternity spent by their side,” yixuan concedes, his smile gentle as he looks at the two members, “but we can spend an eternity in your heart.”

yibo cracks open an eye, looking more awake now out of his annoyance. “you need to stop. that’s way too cheesy.”

wenhan sighs.

“it’s nice to know you’re still the same old xuan- _ge_ …”

“did you just call me old?”

“oh, it’s you again.” wenhan cracks his door open, this time not as surprised to see yibo. 

“i can’t get a more enthusiastic greeting?” he comments as wenhan shuts the door, only to have wenhan put on the largest smile he can manage and coo out his name in an exaggerated, over-the-top fashion. “nevermind, forget that i wished for that.”

“xuan- _ge_ left?”

“yeah.” yibo plops himself down on the hotel bed. “i said bye to him at the airport today after my schedules.”

“ah.” wenhan walks over to take a seat next to yibo. “then when do you leave?”

“tomorrow.”

there’s a pause, and wenhan glances down at his phone. “it’s half an hour to tomorrow, yibo.”

yibo shrugs.

“it’s a bit of a pity, then,” wenhan remarks, allowing himself to lie down and sprawl himself across the bed. “i’ll still be in changsha. it’s not common for us to be in the same city at the same time nowadays, this is already a huge coincidence.” he chuckles, this time a little wistfully. “i guess this might be the last time we’ll get to meet for a while.”

yibo lets a sigh fall past his lips, lying down and using wenhan’s outstretched arm as a pillow. “there’s nothing we can do about it.” he refuses to move his head even as wenhan attempts to shift his arm, and at some point the older of the two gives up and accepts his fate of having a numb arm. “let’s just wait until after you don’t live in the dorm anymore; even if you came over every day the company wouldn’t care.”

“alright, let’s wait for that day.” wenhan plays with yibo’s hair, and the latter lets him. “your electricity bill will thank me.”

“i’m staying the night,” yibo says suddenly, “just in case you didn’t know.”

wenhan raises an eyebrow. “did you just decide that by yourself?”

“it’s not like you can kick me out,” yibo points out, and wenhan grudgingly acknowledges that he’s right. “we don’t have many opportunities anyway, might as well make good use of this one.”

they lie in comfortable silence for a moment, and wenhan is midway through a train of thought somewhere along the lines of how nice it is to be able to lie anywhere with some people and just bask in their familiar presence - up until he’s (rudely) interrupted by yibo rolling over and peering at his face. “you haven’t been sleeping well lately?”

“i - uh - what?” wenhan blinks. “how did you know?”

yibo snickers. “just looking at your triple eyelids, that’s all.”

wenhan clicks his tongue, swatting at yibo lightly. he manages to dodge. “my fans are already teasing me enough, don’t you start.”

yibo laughs light-heartedly. “people say that it happens when you don’t sleep well. you should get more sleep someday and see how it goes.”

wenhan lifts his phone, observing his extra eyelid fold through the front-facing camera. “i should get back my double eyelids tomorrow then?” he comments off-handedly, seeing yibo’s eyebrows furrow in mild confusion in the corner of his eyes.

“it’s not like we’ll get much sleep tonight, we all have work tomorrow,” he points out.

“it might not be long, but if it’s with you, at least i’ll get some quality sleep.” wenhan laughs at his own words, and this time yibo is the one who rolls his eyes at his _ge_. “and - oh.” wenhan exits the camera app to glance at his phone screen, “it passed midnight.”

“and?”

wenhan shakes his head amusedly. “happy 520, yibo.”

“oh, right, sorry.” yibo doesn’t sound very apologetic. “confessing to anyone today?”

“it’s not like i have anyone to confess to,” wenhan points out. 

yibo lets out a short huff, reaching out to play with wenhan’s hair. wenhan sighs, but lets him. “didn’t you say you were going to fall for me?”

“ah.” wenhan laughs, draping an arm over yibo’s body. “how did i forget? okay, you can be my 520 confession.”

yibo pushes his arm away. “i’m waiting.”

“wait, i have to do it?”

“hey, i deserve a sincere confession at least,” yibo says indignantly.

wenhan sighs wearily. “you’ve gotten better at acting.”

“thank you.”

they lie there for another few minutes, gazes fixed on different spots on the ceiling, until yibo speaks up. “so, are y-”

“i love you,” wenhan states suddenly, and yibo falls silent. “i mean, i’m not saying this because of the occasion, but you know what i mean, right?” he shifts his gaze from the ceiling to yibo’s. “ah, whatever, i’m not that good at words.”

yibo laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “i know what you mean.” a brief moment’s silence, a slight smile, and then, “i love you too, but you know that already, don’t you?”

“of course i do. who wouldn’t love me?” wenhan demands, and yibo groans and pushes him away.

“your annoying side is back.”

wenhan rolls back to where he had been lying. “you love me like this anyway.”

their night, this time, is devoid of raucous, unending laughter, devoid of screaming over video games and yelling at their losses. it’s calmer this time, a gentle blanket of silence accompanying their steady breaths as they enjoy the comfort of one another’s presence.

it’s long past midnight when yibo speaks again, voice already dredged with sleep. “do you ever regret how we were never able to stay together for the eternity we wished for?”

“of course i do.” wenhan’s voice is muffled too, his words blurring together in drowsy tinges. “but there was nothing we could do. as long as we’re in each other’s hearts for an eternity; that’s good enough.”

yibo chuckles into his pillow. “when xuan- _ge_ said it it sounded too corny, how did you make it sound cool?”

“because i’m a cool person.”

yibo snorts.

“don’t delude yourself.”

that night, wenhan watches through half-lidded eyes as yibo falls asleep before him, all the while keeping his arms wrapped around wenhan’s frame. he can’t help the soft smile that curves the corners of his lips upwards, with an odd yet familiar sort of warmth beginning to blossom somewhere within his heart.

when they were younger, they had been too innocent, too unwary; they had naively made promises, made wish after wish, lounging in the happiness of the times back then that they didn’t know would come to such an abrupt end. it was only after growing up that they realised how all their hopes were nothing more than a cute little dream fighting to survive in a cruel, merciless world; it was only after growing up that they realised no matter how hard they fought, no matter how hard they tried, there would always be some wishes that wouldn’t come true, that there would always be some promises that had to be broken, that there would always be some things that cannot be controlled no matter how much they wanted it.

it was only after growing up that they realised reality wasn’t as beautiful as they had envisioned it to be, that the world is as cruel of a place as it is, that every step they took would be met with obstacle after obstacle blocking their path to happiness. it was only after growing up that they realised there’s nothing in life they can fully control, that they have no way to guarantee the way their future unfolds no matter how hard they try. 

it was only after growing up that they realised the eternity that they had once collectively hoped for turned out to be this short.

the first time he had met the members, they had all been young, naive perhaps, unknowing of the bitterness that lay within the ebb and flow of the future promised to them; five of them, bound by the same dream of the stage, had chased that dream with some special kind of dogged determination, throwing everything else to the side, not paying attention to everything else going on. he supposes that they were so focused on chasing this dream of theirs that they didn’t notice time slowly slipping out of their grasp; and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the world they once shared had changed without them knowing. five people’s hope of eternity had been broken; at some point, unbeknownst to them, each person found themselves standing alone on an unfamiliar path, taking on the looming world alone; and just like that, all five of them had unknowingly grown up.

when wenhan had been young, he’d always assumed growing up would be a wondrous kind of growth, transformation; it was only after growing up that he realised that growing up turned out to be something that happened in a mere heartbeat, something that happens when you’re unaware of it, something that you realise only after looking back at everything you’ve been through and knowing you’ve changed, but not being able to place the specifics of it all. 

when wenhan had been young, he’d always thought becoming mature would be like developing a pair of wings and finally learning how to take to the skies; he hadn’t known then that it would feel, instead, as though his entire sky was crashing down all around him, and he didn’t know how to lift it back up, or where to even begin.

people say you only realise what’s most precious after it’s gone; some days, when wenhan thinks of the days that had once been filled with hope, all he can manage is a bittersweet smile. he didn’t become one out of five only to have to face the haunting loneliness of the future; he didn’t love his group so fiercely only to have to experience heartbreak; he didn’t wish for them to be together for an eternity only to have to watch everything fall apart. and what they say is true - it’s only at times like this, lying awake in the dead of the night and trying to piece together where and when and how everything changed from what he once knew, that he realises just how beautiful everything had once been.

he doesn’t entirely remember when it was that he realised how bitter a place the world is. maybe it was when he was filming a drama, and through flashes of frustration and self-directed anger during script memorisation that he had asked himself what he was doing there, why he was staring at a script instead of standing on stage singing his lungs out. maybe it was staring at his phone and seeing his members’ photographs pasted across _weibo_ , and lamenting as to how he could only rely on social media to see what they had been up to after spending so many years being well-aware of their every action. or maybe it was after he returned to the stage again on the programme that birthed unine; quietly standing in the centre of the stage, and asking himself why he felt so alone even when he was surrounded by so many people.

some nights like this, when he lies reminiscing about everything, he thinks he’s something of an optimistic fool. how long has he waited? how long have all of them waited? the thought itself makes him feel weary down to his bones, so he casts it aside. it sticks to his mind like a burr. 

he had first stepped onto this path as a naive, not-knowing-anything kid, incensed only by his passion for music, for the stage; all of them had been, back then. but then at some point, the kid grew up, and was forced to open his eyes to the bitterness that the world offered - no, offered would be the wrong word. the bitterness that the world compelled him to acknowledge, the bitterness that made him lie awake on nights like these, asking himself why, and never knowing the answer each time.

he grew up, and realised how easily all the happiness he’s ever received can be turned in a moment’s breath to the most soul-shattering kind of sorrow, how the blossoms of joy can wilt too easily into the rotten scars of the heart. how hopes and dreams they were always told to chase, in the end, can’t determine someone’s life. how you can pick the pen up and try as hard as your body allows, but at the end of it all, the words that spill out aren’t entirely your own.

wenhan is aware - he was aware a long time ago - that maybe someday it will all come to an end, and that’s just how the story ends, an unfinished dream buried amidst a pile of other unrealised hopes and unending regrets. maybe one day fate will be cruel enough to shatter the hope residing in five separate beating hearts without even offering so much as a last goodbye. maybe someday, wenhan knows. the hope that he stubbornly clings on to may be futile, he knows. the more you hope, the more disappointment you’ll have to face, he knows.

he does it anyway.

in such a cruelly bitter world, he allows himself to foster this sole wish of his, silently preparing himself for the heartbreak he knows he may one day be forced to face (but it has yet to happen, so day after day, he’ll keep fiercely wishing, fiercely waiting for the day their five paths can conjoin as one again), allows himself to hold on to his own ray of hope in a hopeless world, allows himself to lie awake on nights like these, telling himself he won’t let go.

he knows full well that maybe someday it’ll all amount to nothing, that he’ll face the heartbreak, that he’ll realise it really is a world where hope cannot live, that he had held on for nothing.

but their story is not over.

and so, day after day, he will wait.

wenhan stares at yibo, stares at the way he looks so peaceful when he’s sound asleep, like all the worries of the world had melted away and there was nothing that plagued his mind anymore, and wenhan smiles. both of them had grown up somewhere along the way, and as they lie next to each other just as they had done when they were younger, wenhan knows they’ve all become different versions of themselves, different from how they had been all those years ago.

but they’re still all so familiar, all of them. wenhan still sees the childlike innocence in yibo from time to time, still sees the thirteen-year-old he remembers roaming somewhere in yibo’s soul. their gazes are different now, less vivid, weighed down by tiredness and afflicted by unspoken worries. 

but their laughs when they’re with each other are still the same. their light touches, teasing taunts, playful bickering. the light in the eyes, the smile on their lips, the warmth in their beating hearts.

it’s all still the same.

wenhan closes his eyes, the smile soft on his lips, and allows himself to fall asleep to the sound of yibo’s breathing, slow and steady in the still air.

their story is not over yet.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> so i kind of got carried away and wrote too much
> 
> twitter: @lwenhans


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